The creation of a Hockey World Cup and the commissioning of a trophy was driven by the President of Pakistan Hockey Federation, Air Marshal Nur Khan. As hockey journalist Ijaz Chaudhry explains, it was under Nur Khan's guidance that Pakistan staged a very successful nine nation tournament in Lahore in March 1969. It was during the course of this tournament that the Air Marshall presented the idea of a Hockey World Cup to Rene Frank, then President of the International Hockey Federation (FIH).

Khan stressed how important it was for the sport to have more than one world level tournament, it should, he said, take a leaf out of football’s book and have its own World Cup.

The first National Association to back up the Pakistan proposal was near neighbour, India, and so the idea began to develop.

There was opposition to the idea: one argument was that, as an amateur sport, hockey would not be able to sustain two world level events.

As Chaudhry writes: 'The Hockey World Cup is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Carved out of gold and silver, it exhibits a hockey stick and ball sticking on top of an embellished big globe.”

Including the base, the trophy stands 650 mm (26 in). It weighs 11,560 g (408 oz), including 895g (31.6 oz) of gold, 6,815g (240.4 oz) of silver, 350 g (12 oz) of ivory and 3,500g (120 oz) of teak.

The designer was Basheer Moojid and the actual workmanship was carried out by members of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Corps of the Pakistan Army.

This World Cup was formally presented to Rene Frank in Brussels by the Pakistani ambassador in Belgium, where FIH were headquartered at the time.

Since then, the trophy has been passed to the hands of hundreds of champions, athletes who have helped their team to the Hockey World Cup title.

Credit- FIH NEWSLETTER